Quick Q and A with Oen Kennedy
 by Kathy S-B  ·  6 November 2008

Oen Kennedy is perhaps one of the most unique individuals to have graced the me&thee stage. Check out his music on his My Space page.

If you had to choose just one or two magical musical moments in your life, what would they be?

The first time I saw Toumani Diabate at Johnny D’s in Somerville, he limped up on to the stage carrying his Kora, sat down and proceeded to tune for maybe 10–15 minutes. Since the instrument has twenty one fishing line strings of different weights and you tune it by sliding up and down rawhide collars on a stalk of hardwood which comes out the top of a big gourd covered with goatskin and ornamented with rivets, it’s no wonder it takes a while to tune. But still, you don’t expect someone to tune for ten minutes. I had one of his CDs so I knew I loved his music, and in general I love Kora playing since I grew up listening to it on vinyl, but I was unprepared for seeming him live. His tuning time subtly and seamlessly evolved into an instrumental piece I’d never heard before. I heard and saw (as he was playing): A desert night sky filled to overflowing with starlight; flowers breathing out intoxicating fragrances; owls and lions calling to each other through the darkness; villagers talking and laughing by candlelight; children playing in a river and running along the shore; hunters stalking prey; ancient caravans shifting along through sand etc. etc., and I felt literally lifted out of my chair, out of my body. I really felt at the time (and still feel) that his music was and is a direct expression of life and nature with very little interference from say, clocks. I felt like I imagined I would feel listening to JS Bach spontaneously working out a 5 part fugue, with obviously different imagery. To this day, the closest I have come to a living musician who is Bach-like in genius was that night in ’96 in Somerville (though seeing Keith Jarrett improvising live is up there too).

An interview with you wouldn’t be complete without mentioning your love of birds. Do you have a favorite spot for birdwatching? Is there a bird that you’ve never seen in person but would love to behold?

Here are my favorite spots for birdwatching: Monhegan Island , especially in May; Plum Island, especially in Winter; Newfoundland in Summer, Madera Canyon in Southeast AZ in March/April; and Middletown RI in the Fall-Winter-Spring. I remember being at the Washington Monument reflecting pool in Oct./Nov. of 1968, and noticing a column of Blackbirds going overhead. It was probably a mixed flock of Red Winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles,. The column was maybe 500–1000 feet off the ground, and was maybe 50–100 yards wide and was maybe three or four birds deep and went by at 30–40 mph for a good twenty minutes. Hundreds of Thousands of Blackbirds, if not millions, surging overhead in a thick black band, impenetrable and unstoppable. Then when I was in eighth grade I wrote a paper about the Passenger Pigeon and its demise. Did you know that there over a billion of them, that they were highly communal, and that when they migrated, one could witness columns of birds a mile wide, 6–10 birds deep, flying at nearly 50mph, which would take one or two hours to pass overhead ?!?!? This boggles the mind.

There are around 10,000 species of birds we know of on Planet Earth, and, you are right, they are one of my primary sources of joy. I have a particular love of, and connection to, Woodpeckers, but all birds are amazing. Take the Kakapo (a bird I’ve never seen), an eight pound endangered flightless parrot from New Zealand, the males of which hike up to mountaintops at dusk, make a small depression in the earth and inflate their bodies to an almost-sphere to serve as a resonating chamber for loud booming calls sent out in to the valleys on starlit nights for the females to hear, who will then make their own slow trek up to the lek to mate with the best boomer!! And there is an orchid in Amazonia which has co-evolved with a specific species of bee, who ALONE can pollinate this orchid by virtue of matching bodily structures. These miracles are all around us. How not to be inspired to write songs or poems in response to miracles?

Tell us about your most recent CD “Oook.” For starters, what does the title mean?

“Oook” means “music.” It was the best I could pronounce that word when I was a one year old. The title track explains how I’d hang around the record player and hold my favorite record up (“Alley Cat” by Bent Fabric maybe) and yell “OOOK! OOOK!”. In my baby book, the word “Oook” was one of the first words I ever spoke. This CD is my fourth. I kind of wish it was vinyl, though. Is the vinyl they make LPs out of the same as PVC? That is toxic. I have a feeling they’re different. I mostly only listen to vinyl LPS at home. I don’t like the sound of highly compressed music, which is very common nowadays, if not normal nowadays whether you’re listening to CDs or Mp3s. Bill and I tried on this record to be as organic as possible while working in a digital medium. That means the compression is minimal, that everything occurred live in the studio, except for the sounds we recorded outdoors. It was a total pleasure working with Bill Derby. He is a master musician and we are really on the same wavelength about music and about the creative process. I am happy with the record, especially with Big Dark Eyes, Million Legged, Freedom Freedom, Wings, and Take Me Back. It’s funny. The song which I consider to be my most well crafted song, “Letter Home,” is the one which no one so far has commented upon, which makes me think that it has not been noticed/has not touched people, which either means that I am unable to be objective about my music, or, that the song is so subtle and/or so personal, that I as its mom/dad am the only one who fully grasps its significance.

What was it like to win the Boston Folk Festival Songwriting Contest this fall? It was especially nice to have Robin Batteau accompany you for your performances that weekend!

Yup, playing with Robin was a wonderful experience. He truly enhanced my performance of “Annapurna” that day. I still don’t grasp why my song was chosen. The only explanation I can come up with is that the song touched Buskin and Batteau (the judges) on an emotional plane, which would mean that they are open-hearted individuals, which would mean that non-open-hearted judges would have selected a different winning song, which means that I am just incredibly lucky!